A significant percentage of calls or communication attempts within a network fail for various reasons. One such frequent failure occurs during telephone calls on a landline or cellular phone network. However, as the delineation between phone networks and computer networks is increasingly blurred, similar types of incomplete communication failures occur on voice-over-ip systems (VoIP), text and instant messaging systems, and hybrid systems that communicate over multiple systems. A communication attempt failure can occur for various reasons including when a call destination is busy, unavailable, or simply not answering.
Several solutions have been provided to facilitate completion of a failed communication attempt, such as call-waiting, manual or automatic redialing, call forwarding, voicemail, and various automated services that transmit text messages (e.g. SMS messages) containing information concerning the call attempt to one or more of the parties of the failed communication attempt. For convenience, these services that facilitate or encourage the completion of a failed call are referred to herein as “call completion services.”
One such service is known as “Who Called,” or “missed calls notification to destination.” When the phone of a user of the “Who Called” service is temporarily unreachable, the service transmits an SMS message to a user's phone identifying the phone numbers of all users that have tried to call him during a time in which the phone was unreachable.
Voicemail is another wide-spread call completion service, and as such, is used extensively in the every-day activity of a telephone user. One advantage of the voicemail system is that by leaving a voice message at the caller's choice, the caller can complete his active role in the call, and from that point on, if further conversation is necessary, it will be the responsibility of the called party to establish such further communication. However, there are also several disadvantages in the voicemail system for the caller. For example, monetary charges may be accrued as the connection to the voice mailbox is established, and any call completion responsibility is shifted to the call destination, who may, for various reasons, not retrieve the message, ignore the message, or misinterpret the message. Similarly, voicemail presents advantages and disadvantages to the call destination. Voicemail provides the convenience of recording messages when the user is unavailable and permitting such messages to be retrieved at the destination's convenience. However, voicemail can also require the destination to spend time and money retrieving messages, and thereby shift the cost burden of the return-call to the destination.
In addition, a family of call completion services, which can be collectively referred to as “call-back” or “ring back” services, provide call completion in a manner significantly different from voicemail. When a call can not be completed, a call-back service provides the caller with the option of being called back at a time when the system determines the call can be completed. Various call-back services are disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 6,081,725 to Ishida and U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,509 to Okon et al. (the '509 patent is assigned to the present assignee). A call-back service leaves the responsibility of call completion with the caller. The caller receives the call-back notification when the destination is available, and then decides whether to proceed and let the system call the destination. If the caller initiates the call to the destination, from the perspective of the destination, the call is completed as a traditional incoming call and not as the second attempted call after the execution of a call-back service.
U.S. Application Publication No. 2006-0104429 A1 describes a call completion service that responds to call incompletion conditions with a menu of options. The menu of options will vary depending upon caller information, destination information, and/or network information. According to that application, the user must make a selection from the options in the menu in order for the call completion service to be activated. The act of selecting from the options in the menu consumes the caller's time and potentially money (e.g., the cost of cellphone air time). In the absence of a manual selection, no call completion service is activated.
Call completion services do not co-exist or interact well in current systems. For example, a system implementing both voicemail and a call-back service would result in a user receiving multiple voicemail messages as well as redundant SMS messages indicating what calls were missed during a period of unavailability. For reasons such as this, some network providers only offer call completion services as mutually exclusive options (e.g., a user can only subscribe to voicemail or a call-back service, but not both).
However, each type of call completion service has its advantages and disadvantages. Currently, the call-completion service utilized for a particular incomplete call is typically determined by the destination (i.e., by which call completion service is subscribed to by the destination). Thus, the caller has the option of either cooperating with the destination-determined call completion service or disconnecting the call without receiving the advantage of any call completion service. The caller, however, is aware of the intended purposes of the call, and thus has an increased contextual awareness of which call completion service is most appropriate for the purpose of the call. Additionally, the monetary burden of the call typically rests with the caller, thereby potentially requiring the caller to bear the monetary burden of the destination's choice of call completion service.
The present invention provides needed improvements in the management and delivery of call completions services.